Prompted by the killing of Luis Henrique Georges, owner of the newspaper Jornal da Praça, in the city of Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) warned about the "elevated level of insecurity facing the practice of journalism in certain regions of the country," reported the news agency EFE.
On the eve of municipal elections in Brazil, journalists suffered assaults in several cities across the country. The assaults shared a common thread of alleged illegal behavior by candidates and their supporters.
Owner of the newspaper Jornal da Praça, Luis Henrique Georges, was shot to death in the Brazilian city of Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, near the border with Paraguay on Thursday, Oct. 4, reported Uol.
After a series of increasingly aggressive threats from an ex-commander of the Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar (ROTA in Portuguese), an arm of the São Paulo Military Police, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo moved its reporter André Caramante to an undisclosed location for his security, reported the newspaper Brasil de Fato.
The newspaper Diário de Natal, which circulates in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, announced the end of its print edition on Tuesday, Oct. 2, reported the news website No Minuto. In a statement, the newspaper's management said the newspaper would transition to an online-only format and that it would "prioritize and amplify the electronic version."
The United States and Cuba are at opposite extremes of Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2012 report. According to the New York-based organization, the United States was ranked the second most “free” country in the world for online expression, while Cuba was listed as the second to worst.
Brazilian reporter Patrícia Cornils got a surprising response after sharing on Facebook a Google Docs worksheet listing fires in the favelas of São Paulo. Several people joined the collaborative reporting project that became Fogo no Barraco (Fire in the Shanty), an interactive map that cross references data on fires with real estate appreciation near the affected areas. The map demonstrates the journalistic possibilities of online collaboration and crowdsourcing information.
The judge that ordered the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo to remove a blog post about a mayoral candidate in the Brazilian city Macapá, Amapá rescinded the decision to censor the post on Wednesday evening, Sept. 25.
A Brazilian journalist for Record News was violently attacked with an iron rod, leaving him with a head injury, two broken ribs and bruises on his body, while covering a rally for a mayoral candidate in Estreito, Maranhão.
An Electoral Court in the Brazilian state of Macapá ordered the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo to remove a blog post by journalist João Bosco Rabello on Wednesday, Sept. 19, reported the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism.
After the killing of three journalists, Brazil has the highest number of deaths related to practicing journalism in the Americas this year, according to research conducted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
During election season, political coverage takes on a central role in society and journalists come under pressure to improve news gathering.